


Loud and Then

by Aderam



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, First Meetings, M/M, University parties, Yuletide 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 05:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13047507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aderam/pseuds/Aderam
Summary: It turns out that Ketterdam isn't that big of a place.





	Loud and Then

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firstbreaths](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstbreaths/gifts).



> I had a ball playing in this universe! Thanks firstbreaths for the great prompts! I hope you like it!

The boarding house was dark and crowded with students, drinks in hand, yelling wildly down the staircase. In the corner of the living room a girl was singing with more enthusiasm than talent accompanied by a couple of boys with an  accordion and a violin. 

Wylan huddled against the wall as the sea of humanity moved around him through the house. He was of an age with the students who were attending the party, but he felt small and young in comparison. Their alcohol-fueled confidence filled the house with a youthful vitality Wylan had never before witnessed. Especially in such a small space. He couldn’t remember why he’d come in the first place. 

No, that was a lie. Wylan knew why he’d come. Just like with so many other things it all came back to his father. There were always comments from Jan Van Eck, off-hand, more or less veiled comments about Wylan’s capabilities or lack thereof, and how he would never fit in at the University. How he should have started classes this fall, but hadn’t. Tales about Jan’s own experiences, business classes only surpassed by parties at various student boarding houses. He’d left a pamphlet for this party on the piano where Wylan would be sure to find it. Wylan hadn’t been able to read the words, but the images of wine bottles and ticker-tape had been fairly clear and he’d recognized the crest of the College of Chemists in the corner. He’d gotten his latest tutor - still new and confident that he could succeed where so many others had failed - to read the address and the date aloud to him.

It was still near the beginning of term, Wylan had reasoned to himself, it wouldn’t be unusual to see an unfamiliar face.

Wylan thought about leaving, his palms sweaty and his face already red even without the benefit of alcohol. The crowd was overwhelming. No one seemed surprised to see him, but nobody approached him either, too busy yelling across the room at friends.

He took two steps away from the wall, intending to leave, and was immediately run into by another boy.

“Oof!” Wylan said nearly losing his balance only to be stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Look out there, friend!” said the boy attached to the hand who had run into Wylan in the first place.

Wylan looked at him incredulously but any protest was silenced by a sly grin.

The boy in front of him was tall and almost painfully thin, his dark skin making him stand out from the pale Kerch students surrounding them. The hand not steadying Wylan held one of the sturdy ceramic cups that were being passed around the party.  He looked Wylan up and down with his full attention and Wylan blushed in return.

“Haven’t seen you around before,” the other boy observed leaning in close to Wylan to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “What brings you to our lovely flop house?”

“I -” Wylan stuttered, “I saw the, the pamphlet.”

“We made pamphlets?” the other boy asked rhetorically, “No wonder so many people showed up! Now,” the boy leaned even closer to Wylan, his hand still on Wylan’s shoulder, “it appears that you don’t have a drink, my friend. Let me fix that for you!”

He squeezed Wylan’s shoulder and turned him toward the back of the house, the opposite direction he’d been intending when he left the safety of the wall.

The kitchen was, if anything, more crowded than the living room had been, filled with students looking for a drink. A large wooden barrel sat upright  in the corner with the end open,  manned by a round, red-faced boy wearing a set of dirty black academic robes and using a ladle to fill cups from the barrel.

“Jesper,” The round face boy exclaimed, while Wylan’s companion let go of his shoulder to grab another cup off the rickety table next to them. “What in Ghezen’s name are you doing here?”

“It’s a party, Bram,” Jesper replied, winking back at Wylan and handing Bram his own cup for a refill. Bram automatically starting filling it with his ladle and Jesper took the opportunity to use the dangling sleeve of Bram’s robe to wipe out the inside of the second cup. “I’m partying.”

Bram rolled his eyes, but still traded cups with Jesper once the first one was filled. “If Ma Janssen catches you here she’ll kill you,” he said plainly. “Unless you’ve got her rent money.”

Jesper grimaced but gestured for Bram to hand the second cup to Wylan. “She’s a sweetheart, really,” he said.

Wylan took a cautious sip of the beer, hoping he wouldn’t be asked his opinion.

“Sure,” Bram returned, already taking a cup from the next student. “But if I were you I’d keep my eyes open. She mentioned that she was going to do a walk-through tonight and make sure we weren’t destroying her house. I’m not interested in attending your funeral.”

“No mourners,” Jesper muttered in response.

“What?” Bram asked without looking up from the cup he was currently filling.

“Nothing,” Jesper assured him. “I’ll see you around Bram.”

Jesper waved vaguely at his friend and again grabbed Wylan’s arm, steering him out of the kitchen into a less crowded room off the front hall.

“Sorry about that,” Jesper said. The room was quieter than the kitchen or even the living room, music still filtering through from the other room. Jesper still leaned into Wylan’s space. “Bram is a good fellow, but he worries about the silliest things.”

Wylan shuddered as Jesper leaned even closer, snaking a long arm behind him against the wall. Wylan watched, transfixed, as Jesper licked his lips and took another sip of his beer, still standing in Wylan’s space.

“Now,” Jesper said, his voice low, and smooth, “you were telling me about yourself. What’s your name, darling?”

“FAHEY!” a woman shouted from the opposite end of the room.

Jesper’s shoulders tightened and his eyes widen in fear, but he didn’t turn. Beyond Jesper’s shoulder Wylan could see an older woman scowling and walking toward the two of them. Jesper shoved his cup into Wylan’s free hand and took a quick look over his shoulder to assess the situation.

“Sorry, friend,” He said quickly, keeping his eyes fixed on the advancing woman, “but I’m going to have to cut this short. It was my pleasure.”

Jesper leaned forward and kissed Wylan firmly on the cheek before sprinting in the opposite direction of his landlady. Wylan didn’t even have a chance to speak.

“Get back here, boy!” the woman - presumably Ma Janssen - yelled as she followed after Jesper, but the other boy was already lost in the crowd. 

The students laughed at the commotion, but didn’t move to get involved. Wylan took a deep breath and straightened from where he was still leaning against the wall. 

This was ridiculous. He didn’t belong here at all. Wylan took a sip of beer from Jesper’s cup and grimaced. It was time to go home.

 

***

 

Wylan wakes slowly, blinking in the soft pre-dawn light streaming in through his bedroom window. The house is quiet and it’s so early that even the bird-song from outside is muted and unenthusiastic. Jesper is wrapped around Wylan like an octopus, somehow lying mostly on top of the shorter man, his head resting on Wylan’s chest and his feet hanging off the end of the bed. Everything is soft and warm.

Jesper frowns in his sleep and Wylan rubs his back slowly until he sighs back into Wylan’s chest, soothed. Wylan might be awake now, but he’s not going anywhere while Jesper sleeps on top of him.

It’s strange being here, in what was once his father’s house. He’s more comfortable now than he’s ever been, and most of that is down to the man wrapped around his waist. He thinks back to the time before he joined the Dregs, it’s hard to believe how much has changed in so little time. He remembers seeing Jesper for the second time, taller and not as skinny as he’d been at the party years ago. Wylan hadn’t recognized him at first, there were too many new people and he wasn’t exactly in the right place to be thinking about one night nearly two years before. But Jesper hadn’t mentioned it either.

“Stop thinking so loudly,” Jesper mutters sleepily into Wylan’s chest, eyes still firmly shut. “Pillows are not meant to think so much.”

Wylan grins into Jesper’s hair and continues rubbing up and down his back soothingly. “I’m sorry, my lord,” he teases. “I’ll endeavour to think as little as possible in the future.”

Jesper kisses Wylan’s chest, moving as little as possible, and Wylan can feel his smile against his skin. “See that you do, merchling,” he says and he sounds fully awake now.

Wylan sighs, “I was just thinking about when we met,” he says. “Do you remember that party?”

“What party?” Jesper asks. “I just remember Kaz bringing you in - your eyes were as big as saucers.”

Wylan chuckles, “It was before that,” he says, scratching at the short hairs on the back of Jesper’s neck. “A few years ago, there was a party at the College of Chemists boarding house. I was just about to leave when this tall idiot ran into me and forced me into the kitchen to get a drink.”

“Wait -” Jesper says lifting himself up on his arms so he can see Wylan’s face. “That was you? Why didn’t you say something?”

“Well,” Wylan squirmed under Jesper’s scrutiny, “I didn’t remember at first, and then there was too much else going on - I forgot about it. It’s not like we knew each other long. Did your landlady catch you?”

Jesper smirks, “Ma Janssen was nowhere near as fast as me,” he says. “I think I actually still owe her two months’ rent. Maybe we should go visit her with a cheque.”

Wylan rolls his eyes, “Maybe,” he says pulling Jesper down for a kiss. Jesper obliges happily, humming into Wylan’s mouth.

“You know,” Jesper says, pulling back only slightly and speaking quietly into the space between them. “I did ask around for you afterwards. I didn’t get your name, and no one else remembered a cute first year from that night.”

“That’s because I wasn’t a first year,” Wylan chuckles.

“No you weren’t,” Jesper agrees, smiling down into another kiss. They lost another few minutes to kissing before Jesper pulls back again, arching an expressive eyebrow at Wylan. “You’re thinking too much again,” he says. “Come on, spit it out.”

“I was just -” Wylan starts, and licks his lips, blushing as Jesper’s gaze follows the movement. “Do you - do you ever wonder what would be different? If - if we’d met earlier? Or if we’d actually connected at that party for more than a few minutes?”

Jesper smiles fondly down at him. “Honestly, Wylan,” he says, “I try my best not to think of those things.” He kisses Wylan again. “Things are good. And yeah, they might have been better - we might have skipped over a lot of the bad things. But, Wy, there are so many ways it could’ve been worse. I’m just grateful for what we have.”

Wylan relaxes back into the bed. “I suppose we can settle for a house on the Geldstraat, and a modest trading empire,” he says sarcastically.

Jesper grins. “I’ll show you settling,” he says trailing one hand down to begin tickling Wylan’s exposed side.

Wylan shouts in laughter and brings up both arms and legs to defend himself.

It’s not as quiet in the house anymore, but Wylan finds he likes the difference.


End file.
